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BEGONIA MARTIANA. 
intimately connected with, and dependent upon, a highly cultivated state, that it 
elicits little admiration in a converse condition. Under unfavourable circumstances, 
the branches become straggling and attenuated, the internodes lengthen without 
acquiring a corresponding vigour, and if flowers are formed at all, they are scanty 
both in numbers and magnitude. 
To enable it to form a compact spreading specimen, three or four principal 
stems should be allowed in a pot ; these, under genial culture, will reach nearly 
eighteen inches in height, and to make a good specimen, they should measure 
nearly as much across. It is necessary to be circumspect in the application of 
water at the commencement of growth, for the young shoots are then extremely 
susceptible of injury from a surplus of moisture ; but as the plant acquires the full 
renewal of its vegetative activity, copious supplies will be required almost daily. 
A stove or warm pit with bottom-heat, screened from the glare of the mid-day 
sun, will be the fittest place till the flowers begin to form, when it may be removed 
to an intermediate house, where more light is admitted. 
